Thursday, April 08, 2004
Boxes, and bears.
He wakes in the wee hours of the morning, computer still poised to create anew, a blank slate before him and wonders : why am I doing this?
Perhaps it's so that next time a stranger asks for his story - vanishingly rare now in this increasing age of apathy - he'll be able to dispassionately point them in that direction. He won't have to dredge it all up again in his mind.
He's not quite there, his eyes blank as he writes. Perhaps when he takes the time to re-read it all, sometime, his eyes will fill.
Or perhaps not.
Calm. So calm.
******
God forbid She ever reads it.
******
Listening to sting, yet again, mourning reflectively about... a deck of cards, a man. a life. a cynic. and reading... a truly intimate stranger (how apt) yet again he remembers.
He's walking outside tescos. Somehow their telephone conversation has taken an abrupt turn yet again, unexpectedly. One minute she's ranting passionately about herself, and her achievements, her pride. The next, a simple thoughtless comment later and she's hurt. Cruel. Too cruel. His hatred of egocentricity turns his tongue into a knife.
He's taken aback, but something inside him is burning.
Something inside him hates the way he becomes, with this child. Surely, for someone who should matter this much, he should be protecting. Not scathing.
But it was never like this with Her
The thought rises unbidden.
******
Tentatively (so early on! How could he have been so blind!) he raises the shadow of a question. Do you wonder... what if we don't work out.
Pause.
And then tears. Dammit, I've done it again.
He tries to explain; that what we take for granted today may all be lost tomorrow, that without eternal vigilance something evil will seep in. He knows. He knows.
It's conventional wisdom. It's my conventional wisdom.
Informed paranoia.
She won't hear any of it. Tears, and anger.
He falls silent. For the next two years.
How could I have been so blind?
He wakes in the wee hours of the morning, computer still poised to create anew, a blank slate before him and wonders : why am I doing this?
Perhaps it's so that next time a stranger asks for his story - vanishingly rare now in this increasing age of apathy - he'll be able to dispassionately point them in that direction. He won't have to dredge it all up again in his mind.
He's not quite there, his eyes blank as he writes. Perhaps when he takes the time to re-read it all, sometime, his eyes will fill.
Or perhaps not.
Calm. So calm.
******
God forbid She ever reads it.
******
Listening to sting, yet again, mourning reflectively about... a deck of cards, a man. a life. a cynic. and reading... a truly intimate stranger (how apt) yet again he remembers.
He's walking outside tescos. Somehow their telephone conversation has taken an abrupt turn yet again, unexpectedly. One minute she's ranting passionately about herself, and her achievements, her pride. The next, a simple thoughtless comment later and she's hurt. Cruel. Too cruel. His hatred of egocentricity turns his tongue into a knife.
He's taken aback, but something inside him is burning.
Something inside him hates the way he becomes, with this child. Surely, for someone who should matter this much, he should be protecting. Not scathing.
But it was never like this with Her
The thought rises unbidden.
******
Tentatively (so early on! How could he have been so blind!) he raises the shadow of a question. Do you wonder... what if we don't work out.
Pause.
And then tears. Dammit, I've done it again.
He tries to explain; that what we take for granted today may all be lost tomorrow, that without eternal vigilance something evil will seep in. He knows. He knows.
It's conventional wisdom. It's my conventional wisdom.
Informed paranoia.
She won't hear any of it. Tears, and anger.
He falls silent. For the next two years.
How could I have been so blind?
